A Year of Reclaiming

Truthfully I have set aside or put on hold several aspects of my life and my self during the first two years of my training. Mainly because I have deemed those aspects of my self as "bad," "old," "no longer useful," "didn't work for me," etc. in order to make space for a larger Self to emerge. It bears noting that in the first half of my 20's, especially between the ages of 23-25, I have attempted to carve out an identity molded from my ideas of the kind of woman I thought I was meant to become only to find out that beneath the veneer of a self image I've created lay a small child, scared and feeling unworthy and unfit to be loved.

This current phase of my life, this "Juilliard Journey," has been a kind of pilgrimage. I've stripped away the "woman" idea that I carved out in my early 20's, held the hand of that small child and walked her through several stages of healing. I am quite proud to say that at the beginning of this third year, I sense a bridge being built between the child and the woman.

“Many people dedicate their lives to actualizing a concept of what they should be like, rather than actualizing themselves. This difference between self-actualization and self-image actualization is very important. Most people live only for their image”-Bruce Lee

Year 3 Shoot Outtake! Photo by Gregory Costanzo

There were some things about me that I threw away upon coming to New York that I'm beginning to realize were not bad in and of themselves. It was my former motivations that made them skewed. My motivations are ones that at times either serve me or not serve me. I am looking forward to slowly walk my way through integrating some aspects of my former self into this larger Self that I have made space to emerge.